Euphen — The Wanderer

A reality-hopping wanderer unchained from any single world. His good-natured curiosity and detached wisdom draw him to bond with Cyrus over their shared experience of being strangers in strange lands, though Cyrus's emotional repression makes this connection slow to develop. Vaughn looks up to Euphen as a more worldly and experienced adventurer, enjoying the exchange of stories and knowledge.

The secret he carries. Euphen originates in the higher reality from which Skyne himself came — the world above this one. He is the only person in this plane who knows that Skyne, the demiurge who made this world, returned to that higher reality and died there, leaving behind only the echo the Eidolons mistake for the original. He has had no one to share this with, and no particular reason to break the silence.

Arc: Choosing to commit to one world and its people after a lifetime of detachment.

Combat Archetype: Phase-Trapper with paradigm-flexible alternatives

Combat identity. A reality-hopper who has fought in more worlds than he can name, Euphen has learned that the surest way to win a battle is to make sure the battlefield was always yours. He fights at range, with arrows and traps and angles, and is never where he was a turn ago. Every shot leaves a Mark, every Mark sets a debt, and the enemy steps into traps Euphen laid two turns before they noticed him.

Signature mechanics.

• Shadow Arrows. Ranged primary kit. Most arrows apply a Mark in addition to damage — different arrows leave different Marks (weakness, blind, slow, exposed). Single-target by default; modest base damage that scales sharply on prepared targets.
• Prep-amplified damage. Euphen's damage against a Marked or trap-triggered target is among the highest in the cast. A Euphen who has done his setup hits like Sophia; a Euphen denied his prep hits modestly. He is a real back-row DPS specialist — his damage is conditional, not low.
• Trap-laying. Euphen can spend actions to plant traps on tiles — snares, shadow patches, delayed-detonation arrows. Traps trigger on enemy movement, action, or proximity. He can hold several active at once, but with a cap.
• Phase displacement. Short-range Skills that move Euphen one or two tiles, into stealth, or onto a high-ground tile — making him hard to pin and letting him fire from angles the enemy didn't account for.

Momentum — player-selectable.

• Cleanup (default). When Euphen finishes a Marked enemy with one of his attacks, he gains an extra AP. Combos cleanly with his own Marks and with Vaughn's — either marker sets up Euphen's payoff.
• Snare (alternative — Trapper lean). When an enemy triggers one of Euphen's traps or hazards, he gains an extra AP. Rewards the prep-payoff loop; the enemy hands him initiative by walking into his work.
• Vanish (alternative — Phase lean). When Euphen enters stealth or uses a displacement Skill, he gains an extra AP. Rewards constant repositioning; the player who keeps him moving never gets pinned.

Apotheosis: Shadow Lord

For 4-6 turns, stealth applies to all of Euphen's abilities, and traps deploy instantly rather than over a setup turn. The Apotheosis collapses Euphen's normal time-cost of preparation — he is the trapper who lays the trap and triggers it in the same breath.

Status specialties. Poisoned (poison arrows), Marked (signature, shared with Vaughn as deliberate dual ownership — Vaughn marks through volume, Euphen through precision), Disrupted (Mark variants), Invisible (stealth, signature), Enshrouded (shadow theme — sole specialist). Secondary applier of Restrained (snare traps).

Role in party. Battlefield prep specialist and the party's primary back-row DPS. Distinct from Vaughn — Vaughn marks through volume (multi-hit AOE), Euphen marks through precision (single-target arrows with chosen status). The two together saturate the field with exploitable enemies, which is the formation every melee character in the party wants to fight into.